Shadowlight
by Renee17
Summary: Salvation can be found in an instant or can be a journey of a thousand years or more. Can one lost soul attone for the sins of his past and escape the bonds of damnation that have cursed him for two millennia? Dracula 2000 meets The DaVinci Code, sort of
1. Prologue

**Shadowlight**

**Prologue**

_"Kill me tomorrow; let me live tonight!"_  
- William Shakespeare, **_Othello_**

The cable broke.

Because of the combined weight of two falling bodies, or the sudden stress on corroded, rusted filaments, or the intense heat from the inferno below—who knew? Or perhaps it was simply a serendipitous combination of all those things—with a chance slip of Fate's shears to help it along—that severed the fragile line. For whatever reason, it broke, sending the dead weight dangling on its end plummeting to the ground below, the concrete reaching up to finish the job that the fire had not quite managed to complete.

But in the end, neither prevailed. The unholy spark within the charred carcass was too strong—or too aberrant—to succumb to either impact or inferno, and the body fell to the ground, rolled into the shadow of the building, and lay still.

It was only moments past sunrise, and the denizens of the city were nowhere to be seen, no doubt sleeping off the decadence of the night before. The only possible witnesses had already fled the scene, stunned and shaken and believing themselves—erroneously—to be safe.

In the minutes after its fall, as the sun continued its slow ascent to full daylight, the body stirred, and a low, pain-wracked groan emanated from the blackened, smoking ruin. A hand—charred and near-skeletal from the devouring flames—reached out, groping a path to the rough stone of the structure. Sightless eyes streamed bloody tears that dried into brownish-black tracks as they rolled down scorched, overheated flesh. The hand found purchase on the rough, cracked frame of an ancient window set low in the wall.

Fumbling at first, but aided by an inhuman strength and an unwavering bent for survival—survival at any and all cost, for who knew what came after?—the ruined fingers found not glass, but bars. In this city, renowned for its greed and its passion, both leading to its rampant criminal activity, what else could be expected?

Groaning, the man—or beast, for he no longer looked even remotely human—fisted his hand around the metal and pulled the dead weight of his body nearer. Reaching out with his other hand—this one not quite so terribly burned—he grasped an adjacent bar and, grunting painfully from the exertion, tugged out and sideways. With a screech of corroded metal, the ancient bars gave way and ripped free of the crumbling mortar that held them. He removed two more and, flailing blindly at the circumference of the opening, judged it large enough.

Fisting his hand again, the man made short work of the thin glass pane that was the last barrier between himself and continued existence.

Grasping two of the remaining bars, he dragged his body over the warming concrete. He _sensed_ the sun's continued rise, though its rays had not yet reached him. A moaning curse, in an ancient tongue, accompanied the rending pain as destroyed flesh scraped along rough ground, but he didn't cease his desperate struggle for the promised salvation that lay in the darkness below. A final pull and he dragged his frame to the opening—although he was not overly large, he was a tall man, and layered with enough lean muscle that it was a tight fit, made agonizing by the brutal claws of broken glass and twisted metal.

With a last frenzied burst of rapidly failing strength, he pulled himself through; a hoarse, grating roar of anguish issued up from somewhere within his broken, burned body as it fell through the opening into the blessed dark of the ancient cellar. Rolling feebly to a far corner, he huddled against a cool, moist rock wall, feeling the chill of the hard-packed earth seep soothingly into his devastated body. A low growl, almost animal in nature, vibrated deep in his throat. In some portion of his mind, the part untouched by the agony-induced madness, a realization formed of what his fight for survival had saved him for, and once again, for the hundredth—or thousandth—time in his endless existence, the impotent fury bubbled up from the doomed depths of his soul. Cracked, blistered lips opened and spewed forth a soundless litany of sacrilegious anguish.

Finally, as the sun reached its zenith, his strength failed him, and he lost consciousness, falling into a deep sleep, with dreams that wavered between hellish nightmares and heartrending memories.


	2. Chapter 1

**Chapter Two**

_"Come not between the dragon and his wrath."  
_**- **William Shakespeare,** _King Lear_**

The fading light brought faint awareness, and with awareness came a pain that was a screaming agony in both body and mind. Days had passed, or moments; in his delirium, time had no meaning or substance. He roused himself enough to pass a shaking hand over the brutalized flesh of his face. That he found flesh at all registered as an improvement from days earlier, when his visage was more skull than man. Some time had passed, then. The healing oblivion of only one daylight cycle could not have managed as much. The hunger that clawed its way through his system was another indication of the length of time he'd been unconscious. Inhuman flesh and bone, seeking to repair the devastation wrought by the rising sun and compounded by the crushing fall, demanded sustenance; down here, there was none to be had.

Or was there? His preternatural hearing picked up the faint sound of scurrying rodents, and although his weakened condition made sending out the compulsion measures more difficult than it should have been, his mind weakly complied, and conveyed the command. Minutes later, the bodies of three scrawny rats lay cast aside and drained. It was a meager meal, bare mouthfuls of an inadequate surrogate for what he really craved, but it quashed the worst of the pain, quieting it enough that he could lapse back into a merciful stupor.

******

Again he awakened, this time more alert than before. Reaching out, he felt for the cold stone of the wall and weakly pulled himself up to recline against its unyielding surface. He focused his senses and quickly found what he sought, giving him grim satisfaction. The compulsion came easier now, his mind sending out a sharp order that was immediately obeyed. More answered his summons this time, caught in a web both broader and stronger than before. He consumed their small offerings quickly; there was nothing in it to be savored but survival. Finished, he discarded the offal and leaned back against the stone, sagging once more into a wary exhaustion.

******

A sound jarred him to consciousness, its noise harsh and foreign in the cellar's gloomy solitude. He came fully awake this time, both mind and senses wholly alert. The noise echoed again, closer. This time he recognized it as...laughter? Yes; laughter, with an agitated, frenetic undertone that grated across his nerves like the ever-present rats scuttling in the dark.

The thought of rats had him glancing sideways, to the random mounds of furry corpses that littered the cellar floor. He grimaced, though more from unsatisfied hunger than disgust. They'd served him passably; while he had no particular fondness for vermin, he had no special aversion toward them either. They were prey; he was predator. That was all. But now he sensed the approach of more suitable prey.

He glanced at his hands, turning them back and forth as he assessed the pale, unmarked skin that stretched too tight across the bones and sinew. The days--weeks?--spent in the dank confines of the cellar stealing what little sustenance he could from the rats and mice had managed to mend his bones and regenerate his flesh, but that meager sustenance could not renew him completely. There was only one thing that could, and from the increased volume of the irritating laughter, it was rapidly drawing near.

He made no noise at all as he got to his feet and drew back into the shadows. There was no light in the cellar, save what little filtered in through the window from the street above, but he needed no illumination. Like other nocturnal beasts of prey, his eyes required little light to see as well--better, even--than mere humans in full daylight.

The raucous laughter reached a crescendo and then subsided into a furtively whispered exchange as two men stumbled down the last few stairs into the gloom and huddled together, conducting some sort of transaction. He heard a rustle of cash, the crinkle of a plastic bag, and the hiss of fabric as the just-exchanged goods and currency were hidden away in and under clothing.

The laughter came again, this time with a sense of desperate eagerness, and he suspected that, their business complete, they would soon seek to depart. Not that they'd succeed.

He moved quickly, staying within the shadows, unwilling to startle them, even though he suspected their dulled human senses would barely perceive his presence, let alone the danger they were in. Quicker than a thought, he had circled around them, looming before them on the broken-down wooden stairway that was their only avenue for escape. Closer to them now, he could smell their unwashed bodies, and a sickly sweet smell vaguely like burning rubber that clung to their grimy, disheveled clothing. Now he did grimace in disgust; the vermin may not have been sufficiently nourishing, but for all that these humans would provide the nutrient he needed most, the rats had been cleaner.

Disgusted with their foulness, wanting simply to use them and be done with it, he sprung at them, grabbing one by the neck and holding him at arm's length while pulling the other to him. He felt their shock and fear; heard their hearts skip a beat and then start to race, smelled their stale sweat and rancid breath as he first willed them to silence and then went for the kill. He felt his fangs lengthen, and stared at the man who would be first to die, seeing in the reflected horror of his victim's eyes that his own were glowing an evil red as the beast roared to life inside him. Licking his lips in anticipation, he drew the man closer, savoring the new scent that wafted towards him--adrenaline and noradrenaline, cortisol and other fight-or-flight hormones coursing through the man's bloodstream, creating a heady cocktail.

The man opened his mouth to scream, but the compulsion to silence held, and all that came out was a groaning gurgle, as he was pulled inexorably toward his killer.

In under two minutes it was over--a quick jerk forward, the plunge of razor-sharp canines into a throbbing carotid, the liquid sound of life-giving fluid being siphoned from one body into another, and finally the thud of an empty carcass hitting the floor. The other victim's end came as quickly, and with an quick snap and tug, he decapitated both corpses, letting the headless bodies fall back to the floor while the heads rolled away into the dark. There would be no resurrection for these two.

Replete, he fell back onto the stairway, feeling the rush of new blood coursing through his veins, rebuilding his organs, replenishing his withered cells, bathing him in new life. He imagined the surge of power and sense of rebirth he was experiencing was as powerful a high as the drugs his unfortunate victims would never have the opportunity to abuse again.

He sat quietly for a few more moments, waiting as his body used the newly-ingested fuel to restore itself fully. Raising his hands to his face, he felt unblemished skin, supple and smooth. His hair, just moments ago lank and brittle, now felt healthy and thick, curling in dark waves to his shoulders. He touched his lips, now full and soft, so different from the cracked, dry flesh they'd been so recently.

He lowered his hands and watched the sinuous slide of skin over sinew as he clenched and released his fists, reveling in the feel of muscles no longer withered and wasted, but lean and strong and full of leashed power.

Rising to his feet, he surveyed the cellar one last time before turning away and climbing the stairs. At the top, he pressed a hand against the door, closing his eyes and feeling the pulsing life of the night beyond. It was still early, before midnight, and the city was fully alive, throbbing and vibrating with the passions and emotions of the humans it housed. He smiled, knowing that there were any number of hungers he could assuage this night. Hungers that had had weeks to grow, hungers that had been forged by the fire of his near death and honed to razor sharpness by the agony he'd since endured. Hungers that he would finally fill and satisfy.

But only one of those hungers had a name. _Mary_.

******

He pushed and the door swung open with a creaking grate of oxidized metal, and he stepped through into the dimly illuminated darkness of the alley beyond, a predator emerging from its den; Lazarus emerging from his tomb.


End file.
